Because of the desirable qualities of flexible foam materials, such as foam rubber or plastic, many novelty and gift items can be easily and inexpensively fabricated from the foam. Pillows, toy animals, and furniture items are easily shaped from foam rubber, either by simply cutting the foam from a larger block of foam, or by stuffing a flexible fabric or plastic casing with smaller pieces of foam until the foam entirely fills the casing. The structural resiliency and lightweight quality of these foams make them adaptable to a wide variety of uses.
However, although many of these foam articles are lightweight, because of their bulk and unusual shapes, packaging is somewhat difficult and shipping is very expensive relative to other items of comparable weight. Similar problems exist in storage of large quantities of foam articles, either in a warehouse or in a retail store; the large space taken up by the articles, particularly low-priced items, does not justify keeping a large inventory. Therefore, retail stores carrying items such as decorator pillows cannot afford to have a large selection of styles and sizes on hand, thereby reducing potential sales.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a rapid, simple method of reducing the volume of items fabricated from flexible foam material for shipping.
It is also an object of the invention to provide a novel method of packaging flexible foam objects.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an unusual gift product consisting of a compressed foam article in a structural container.